The Documentation Centre and Museum of Performing Arts Theatre Institute (MAE) is an information and documentation service specializing in theater, dance, opera, operetta, variety, magic, circus and para-theatrical events. Includes one of the bibliographic and documentary major European, especially with respect to the Catalan and the Spanish Golden Age, and a museum with significant collections (posters, handbills, photographs, models, sketches, scenic and costume) broadcast now through exhibitions.

The MAE is aimed at supporting the teaching and research to students and faculty of the Theatre Institute, as well as all researchers and professionals in the performing arts.

It has an audiovisual and bibliographic collection over 124.000 items which can be accessed through the catalogue:http://cataleg.cdmae.cat/

It consists in manuscripts, volumes and other various items such as autographs and collected letters, posters, puppets, dance and theatre, mostly specialized in Performing Arts. For it is currently receiving 138 periodicals, also offering retrospective tittles from the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.
The archive of the museum is being incorporated into ECLAP.
At present are already incorporated with the following collections:Scenic collection: the theatrical background surpasses de 8000 documents originated in the private collection of Marc Jesús Beltran and largely represents the period of set designers painters' workshops in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Barcelona, increasing in the second half of the twentieth century to the present day.

The paper backdrops in the Teatre del Liceu are a recent addition to the collection of The Performing Arts Museum.The photo archive contains images of performances, actors, opera singers, composers, instrumentalists, stage designers, etc.The posters have been tools of diffusion of performing Arts that from the hand of graphic artists and designers have been converted into works that tell us the history of the Scenic Arts, often with remarkable artistic value.
There are more than 5000 theatrical posters from various European and geographical scope, ranging from the nineteenth century to the present day.
The collection comes from the leading theatres and festivals in Catalonia and also some theatres of the Spanish State.
Standing out we must mention the modernist posters from Santiago Russinyol and Alfons Mucha, Adrià Gual, as well as the Russian Ballet posters from the beginings of the twentieth century of The Teatre del Liceu or the poster from Grau Sala for Margarita Xirgu in Federico Garcia Lorca's play named Doña Rosita la Soltera.Costume sketches background is made up by over 7.800 designs created by such representative authors as Francesc Soler i Rovirosa, Apel·les Mestres, Àlvaro de Retana, Lluís Labarta, Maria Araujo, Alexandre Soler and Trabal Altés.

We emphasize the more than 1300 sketches created by Fabià Puigserver, or the designs by Marià Andreu and the cartoonist Nazario.

Clothing has a collection of more than 3.000 costumes from different artists of the scene.

To highlight we'll mention the collections from Enric de Borràs, Jaume Borràs, as well as the ballerina Tórtola Valencia's ones, Carmen Amaya, baritone Celestino Saroba and tenor Francesc Viñas.

Puppets: We posess over 1.200 objects from Didó's (Ezequiel Vigués) collection, Anglès and the puppetist H.V.Tozer.

The collection is due to be completed as was expected soon with the following:Programs and portfolios: the collection program is formed by printed shows that are shown in Barcelona Theatres, in Catalonia and the rest of the country, since 1860 up to the current season.Photographic archives : The main personal or organisations' photographic archives are from Andreu Basté and Pau Barceló, where we can find a great amount of prominent show business people's pictures, dating from the late nineteenth century-early twentieth.
Teatre Regina includes photographs of local events over the 1980s. Teatre Romea, has images of shows and actors' portraits since their beginings.
Institut del Teatre funds photographs relating to various events organized by L'Institut del Teatre and workshops for students between the 1920s until 2002.